


The Good Type of Crazy

by afterandalasia



Series: Horror Film Responses [2]
Category: Within (2016)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Helping, Hopeful Ending, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Reclaiming Slurs, Slurs, Suicide Attempt, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 03:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14252229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: They drag her from the dusty hollows of the walls with glass still clutched in her hand.The world goes on. She learns to go on, as well.She knows that she’s crazy. She can’t change that.So she’s determined to be the good type of crazy.





	The Good Type of Crazy

**Author's Note:**

> Generally, reviews are right about this film - it's pretty middle-of-the-road and underwhelming for the first two acts, but the third act has got some series bite. And the acting is pretty good, especially the main character Hannah.
> 
> So here I am, writing fix-it fic.
> 
> As you might expect from the title, the POV character of this fic uses the word 'crazy' a lot, about herself and others, in a way that is something between exploring it and reclaiming it. She has mental health issues, people call her crazy, she's gonna use it herself because then other people can't use it as a weapon against her. I hope that it's clear that she has a Relationship with the word.

They drag her from the dusty hollows of the walls with glass still clutched in her hand. Hannah cannot uncurl her fingers from around it as they drag her out from beneath the body of the boy named David, who she had thought had trapped her in place even in death. The blood is thick and sticky on her skin, and she cannot stop crying, even as the paramedics try to remind her of who she is.

They say her name. _Hannah. Hannah._ It sounds meaningless. All that she can see is the reflection of death in the shard of glass in her hand.

 

 

 

Tommy is dead. She hears his father shouting from the hall.

All that she can see is her parents’ bodies.

The glass has severed the tendons in her hand. When they put her under anaesthetic to send her into surgery, part of her wishes that she will not wake up. But even that, she cannot fully dedicate herself to.

 

 

 

She talks to the police. The doctors. Counsellors. Their faces blur. She wakes screaming in the dark and claws at the walls when she thinks that she hears a sound behind them. At the same time as she feels the sinking horror that she has killed a boy, she fears that he will return for her.

Finish the job, all over again.

 

 

 

They let her start to leave the hospital. She cuts her hair short and dyes it black. Anything to stop looking like the girl in the photo.

She is cleared on the grounds of self-defence. It doesn’t seem to surprise anyone, but Hannah is still not sure how she feels about it.

About anything.

 

 

 

Years pass. She turns eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.

She has to learn to write and eat and live left-handed. At least it gives her something to focus on, when the days are at their worst.

 

 

 

The world goes on. She learns to go on, as well.

 

 

 

She is twenty-three, and sitting on the edge of a building. Her hair is blue and undercut, due another dye before too much blonde starts to show at the roots and she begins to hate herself again. Her right hand is still scarred, barely feeling the stone ledge around which it is wrapped.

There is a girl beside her. Tears are streaming down her face, and her hair is pulled back messily. Her sweatsuit hangs on her thin frame.

“You should get down,” the other girl says.

Hannah kicks her heels against the bricks. It’s cold up here, and windy. She should be scared. She hasn’t felt scared in a long time.

“Why?” she says.

“You might fall.”

“It’s okay. This ledge is wide enough to sit on.”

The girl sniffs, even if it doesn’t do much for the streaks of snot that have clearly already made their way down chin to drip onto her shaking legs. “I’m crazy. You shouldn’t be around me?”

“What, like it’s catching?” Hannah doesn’t look round. Just sits beside her on the high ledge. She knows that there are other people below, concerned bystanders, probably EMTs by now. But they aren’t approaching yet. It might as well be just the two of them, in the whole world.

Part of her kind of likes it. There’s nowhere for anybody to hide, up here. No cramped, dusty corners.

“Besides,” says Hannah, “I’m crazy too. It doesn’t matter.”

“People around me only get hurt,” the girl says.

She remembers that feeling. Seeing her parents’ bodies. Daniel, whose throat she slit. Wondering whether it was because she looked so much like his sister or whether it was just because she was in his house at all.

“There’s different types of crazy,” is all she says aloud. “Bad types. Good types.”

The girl laughs, bitter. “There’s no good type of crazy.”

There’s the type of crazy which makes Hannah think that it’s okay to climb out onto perilous ledges because there’s someone thinking of jumping. She knows that she would never have done this before her world had shattered.

“You’re not the bad type of crazy,” Hannah says. She holds up her torn-up hand, the scars gone silver now with time. “I met the bad type of crazy once.”

She sees the girl’s eyes lingering. Questioning. She doesn’t answer; unanswered questions are unfinished moments, and she knows how important they can be.

“My name’s Hannah,” she says, after the moment has stretched out between them. “What’s yours?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I like your socks.”

The girl frowns down at her own feet. A Hogwarts crest is peeking out between her sweatpants and her trainers.

Hannah tucks back her hair behind her ear with her good hand. “I tried to kill myself a couple of times,” she said. “Didn’t manage it, obviously. Funny, really.” She shows the girl her scarred right hand once again. “I got this killing someone else. He was trying to kill me. So I can kill someone else, but not manage to kill myself.”

The girl swallows. Another tear rolls down her face, but there’s something in her eyes, some sort of conflicted emotion. Something is better than nothing at all, Hannah has learned that.

“And then somewhere I realised that… fuck him. Fuck him for trying to kill me. I’m not going to let him win years after he died. So after I’d put in all the work to stay alive, I wasn’t going to throw it away.”

“I thought that was called the sunk cost fallacy,” the girl says.

“I have no fucking idea what you mean,” Hannah replies. This time, the girl’s laugh sounds more genuine, even if there is still an edge of hysteria to it, like she isn’t sure what to make of the urge to smile and it might frighten her into crying again.

Hannah’s been there, too.

“But whoever it was that hurt you? Whatever they did? Fuck them. You’ve won. Every time you open your eyes in the morning, you’ve won. Every time you go to sleep, you’ve won. And anyone who says you aren’t tough enough is an idiot, because you’re tougher than they ever are, and anyone who says you aren’t strong enough is a _fucking_ idiot, because you’ve carried more weigh on your shoulders than they ever have. Brain that small, not like it weighs much anyway.”

She pauses, lets it sink in, looks over again.

“What’s your name?” she says again, softer.

“Nevaeh,” the girl says.

And it sort of sounds like hope.

 

 

 

She knows that she’s crazy. She can’t change that.

So she’s determined to be the good type of crazy.

The sort that climbs on ledges to talk strangers out of jumping. The sort that stays up all night comforting some kid on the other side of the world about their shitty life. The sort that knows that sometimes cutting is fine, it’s a good thing, it’s better than the alternative; sometimes people who haven’t had to make that choice don’t get it, but Hannah does, and she can look someone else in the eye and say that it’s okay and mean it.

The sort of crazy that knows that it does matter whether you mean it or not. Because she wasn’t fucking stupid when she was a kid, she knew when people were trying to lie to her to be nice. The sort of crazy who knows that sometimes you have to do unspeakable things just to survive, and that’s okay as well, and that some people aren’t going to want to look at you if they know. But that they’re just scared of what you’re willing to do, what you’re able to do, and they don’t understand that you found out what you were made of and you are tougher and stronger than they will ever be.

The sort of crazy that helps other crazy.

The sort that proves that not all crazy is made equal.

 

 

 

She doesn’t forget Nevaeh. Just like she doesn’t forget Justin, or Nia, or TJ, or Alex, or any of the other people that she hopes she has been able to help. She hopes that maybe one day she’ll see her in a crowd, or from a distance, and know that it worked. That Nevaeh realised that you were allowed to be crazy. That it was okay.

Months pass, and it’s summer. Summer’s easier, the nights shorter; sometimes she can go to sleep before sunset and wake up before sunrise, and her medication means she doesn’t wake up in the night so much. She still keeps the nightlight on, is still glad of her open-plan studio with no corners, no vents, and an easily-accessible fire escape.

She’s on her way to her counselling when she almost bumps into someone in the doorway of the building

“Fuck, sorry.” She steps back automatically, holding the door open for the person. It’s only then that her eyes flick up, and she sees the woman’s eyes.

There’s recognition, but it isn’t certain. Hannah’s hair is green now, the last bleaching not quite good enough for her to keep it blue. She doesn’t care, as long as it isn’t blonde.

She smiles, relief bubbling her chest. “It’s Hannah,” she says, simply.

Nevaeh smiles. “The good type of crazy,” she says, and it sounds like an agreement.


End file.
